Why you should continue updating your Indie games after it’s out

So, you spend months/years making a game, you finally get it done, release it, awesome! Now you can finally move on to something else right? ….right?

I believe all developers especially indie’s should keep working on their games after release:

There will be bugs

You have a bunch of beta testers, but it can’t compared to the numbers of the general public. There might not be anything game breaking, but the longer you hold off fixing bugs, the more people will likely come across it and disrupt their experience with your game. You might even develop a reputation as a developer who produces buggy games and no one wants that.

There’s always room for improvement

Some things you only notice after more people play your game. You’ll find ways to improve the game whether it’s clearer buttons, interfaces etc. Making the game better will make it a better experience for future players and returning players.

It keeps the game “current”

More relevant to mobile devices since they keep coming out with new ones but even if the game’s been out for a while, you still would like to show it to people today right? You don’t want to show a game you made to a friend or a game development company and find it won’t install or isn’t updated to the latest OS etc.

It keeps the game alive

If you add more content to your game, people are more likely to continue to play more. Releasing updates and patches means your game is still relevant today and if you keep doing it, players become used to it and might even return to your game on their own expecting new content. That won’t happen if you just release the game and that’s it.

Future proofing

Who knows, there might be a new device in the future that you want to port your game to (because it’s popular, for learning, it’s easy or whatever). In that case, you want your game to be as polished as possible. You don’t want to release it on that new device and then people find bugs and then find out it’s also in your game years ago – that’d be a bit embarrassing.

As for me

My game Eternal Pain has been getting updates since it’s release. Reasons I do it is because I’m still learning about game design so I’m constantly tweaking it. I also just like improving things in general ( eg. I’d take out drawings I did ages ago from time to time and redraw them ). In the future I plan to port it to Andriod and I want it have more content. Also designing new levels and demons is fun :)